Understanding what it means if the facts and the evidence are there, and they decide not to prosecute – how do we then call ourselves a nation of laws? Liz Cheney quote in CNN Interview, published Aug. 4, 2022.
We are clearly a nation of men, not of laws. The old saying is an aspiration, just as democracy is an aspiration. Justice depends on those who must enforce the law, or not, and for which laws.
It used to be exclusively the province of men. As in, no women. That has changed., at least in terms of active participation. We still have no way to bring the intelligence of young people into the formula for self-governing, as our civic education in democracy prepares them poorly and our system changes but slowly, if at all.
But the real point is that the US of A has always chosen to be on the edge of lawlessness, or if not that, lawless on its edges. Those edges, or frontiers, were always moving, and absorbed our aggressive tendencies until the 20th Century. Then we had world war to absorb them, or most of them. Some leaked out in "racial" riots, and in lone-wolf-type political assassinations.
This American tendency toward weak observance of the law and prevalence of violence is not the norm for a society said to be advanced. There are plenty of examples, other nations, where the laws are clear, and enforcement is thorough and efficient, disobedience rare and incarceration even more rare. Many of those have full democratic exercise; others maintain the vote but have less free speech and economic liberty.
Self-restraint of the people is critical for lawful societies. Too much disobedience is simply uncontrollable for the authorities.
As for the previous question, though, there are so many pending investigations of Trump at this time, that surely there will be at least one indictment--possibly several, once the retaining wall of respect for past holders of the Presidential office has been breached. The announcement or whatever of his 2024 Presidential run should be no impediment, and in fact it ends any need for the social restraint generally shown toward excoriating ex-Presidents, especially one-term losers. Instead of doing something good for the country, or humanity or the future of the planet, he continues to suck money away from suckees and shows a willingness to carry the ludicrous con forward. As for the DOJ, the threat of his forever-imminent announcement certainly did not spur them to immediate action.
Mere indictment, and I mean criminal indictment(s), civil suits being necessary but insufficient, clears way too low a bar. I want to see convictions, even if plea-bargained (I would think avoiding prosecution under the Espionage Act would be important for his future employers). Trump's card is his own conviction that there would never be a jury that would vote unanimously against him; I think if the jurisdiction is properly chosen (like Atlanta, maybe, for his Georgia vote tampering) it is a possibility. Again, though, we need the heavy stuff, perhaps the insurrection itself if the right persons will turn, if we want to change the course of the story he tells himself: so far, he's still free and making money, so everything's basically fine.
Lawlessness is Central to Our Culture
It seems obvious to some, but we are slow to recognize to what degree we fixate on the borderline between legal and extra-legal, and beyond. The Western, which almost always turns on that question of how we act when we are outside the control of the civilized world. The Gangster epics, which are all about the spaces between what we do in life and the law, and the kind of people who occupy them. All the varieties of cops-and-robbers, including so many that make heroes out of criminals, even assassins who kill for money.
Okay, you may say, that's just Hollywood, Dreamland, the sublimation of desire to survive in the real world with its stifling conformity. This ignores the American tendencies to live outside the rules in our daily lives (I excuse attorneys from reading the following). Smoke pot, drive intoxicated, exceed the speed limit, fail to come to a full stop, cheat on taxes. Everybody does it, or some of it--but not everyone everywhere.
In many countries, people obey the law because it is the law and they know it. In America, people obey the law best when it suits them, randomly when it coincides with their intentions to be free.
Remember the line in "America, the Beautiful" at the end of the second verse :
I think that's the way we want it to be, that in our liberty of actions we choose to obey the law, and that the law protects our liberty. As for the latter, it's a whole other subject, but let's just agree that the reality is that the law is not evenly applied to all in that regard: Some people's liberties are more protected--we could generalize and say it's the people who can afford good lawyers.
Do we choose to obey the law? There's a favorite defense American lawbreakers employ, that they didn't know it was against the law--essentially Trump's play in the Mar-a-Lago document theft case. It's useless in a court as a defense, which presumes you know the law: in some sense the law must be known to expect obedience, as our justice system does. Sometimes, no doubt, we know, whether or not we'd ever admit it.
Overall, though, I would say our tendency is that when it comes down to it, we choose liberty.
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